On Hobos and Homelessness (Heritage of Sociology Series) - Hardcover

Anderson, Nels

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226019667 ISBN 13: 9780226019666

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1999

Synopsis

Nels Anderson was a pioneer in the study of the homeless. In the early 1920s Anderson combined his own experience "on the bummery," with his keen sociological insight to give voice to a largely ignored underclass. He remains an extraordinary and underrated figure in the history of American sociology.

On Hobos and Homelessness includes Anderson's rich and vibrant ethnographic work of a world of homeless men. He conducted his study on Madison street in Chicago, and we come to intimately know this portion of the 1920s hobo underworld—the harshness of vagrant life and the adventures of young hobos who come to the big city. This selection also includes Anderson's later work on the juvenile and the tramp, the unattached migrant, and the family. Like John Steinbeck's Depression-era observations, Anderson's writings express the memory of those who do not seem entitled to have memory, whose lives were expressed in temporary labor.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Anderson (1889-1986) was a hobo when he began collecting ethnographic information about his fellow hobos for his University of Chicago master's thesis in sociology. Because of the academic snobbery of the time, he couldn't openly acknowledge his identity as a hobo until long after his thesis was published as The Hobo, in 1923. The book presented hobos as hardworking, transient, skilled and unskilled laborers who helped extend and develop America's last frontiers. Universities continued to shun Anderson until, at the age of 74, he was hired as a professor at Memorial University in Newfoundland. With the exception of the textbookish final section ("Urban Context, Work, and Leisure"), which doesn't have anything to do with hobos or homelessness, Anderson writes straightforwardly, more like a reporter than a sociologist. The most interesting parts of this selection of chapters from six books and four articles are excerpts from Anderson's autobiography, in which he describes migrating with his parents and siblings across the Northwest, and a narrative introduction of the circumstances that led to his writing The Hobo. The book, however, is not cohesive, and there are needless repetitions of observations and detail. On the other hand, one very stray piece, "Some Dimensions of Time," is excellent. The photos, including some of Dorothea Lange, are memorable, yet not exactly in step with the writer's topics or locales. There is no photo of Anderson, who is, as much as hobos and homelessness, the subject of this book.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226019667
• ISBN 13: 9780226019666
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 310
• Editor: Rauty Raffaele